Some recent reports are going to be a great cause of worry for the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. As per a Sunday Guardian report, all is not well within the TMC and a rebellion may be brewing within her fiefdom. It has come to light that many top TMC leaders are keen to join the BJP but are not able to do so as they feel that the West Bengal BJP leadership won’t be able to protect them against Mamata’s fury. This has come from sources within both the BJP and the TMC. This also corroborates the claims made by the BJP in the past that several TMC leaders are ready to join the BJP.
The apprehension of the TMC leaders is well founded. We have seen a glimpse of what Mamata Banerjee can do if her hegemony is challenged in any way. During the Panchayat polls earlier this year, she had given a free run to her party hooligans in the state so that she could secure an easy victory in face of a rising BJP in West Bengal. Thereafter, a number of BJP workers were murdered in the state under chilling circumstances. Mamata Banerjee has made a complete mockery of democracy and law and order situation in the state showing that she can go to any extent for retaining political power. Undoubtedly, TMC leaders are fed up of her and want to join the BJP but fear for their safety.
This is not for the first time that there are signs of disenchantment towards the West Bengal chief minister from within her party. Recently, TMC Assam unit chief Dipen Pathak and two other state leaders resigned from the TMC owing to irreconcilable difference with Mamata Banerjee over the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC). Pathak said while tendering his resignation that, “Mamata is out to incite communal tension in Assam and break age-old harmony. We have asked her to visit Assam on several occasions when Assam faced unprecedented flooding, she could not find time. Again, we asked her to raise the flood problem of Assam in Parliament, which she never did. Now she is out to politicize the NRC issue.” It has thus become clear that Mamata’s controversial stance on the NRC issue led to such a huge divide within the TMC. Prior to this, in the month of June former TMC minister Humayun Kabir also joined the BJP.
It is clear that the days of TMC and Mamata’s dictatorial rule in West Bengal are numbered. Her high handed attitude, tyrannical and anti-democratic approach to governance combined with appeasement politics has disenchanted the TMC leaders. They are clearly fed up with how West Bengal became a hotbed of anti-Hindu communalism under Mamata government and her sympathetic attitude towards illegal Bangladeshi immigrants must have also become intolerable for the TMC leaders. They want to join a rising BJP in the state but are compelled to stay in TMC as they fear for their safety if they defy the tyrannical chief minister. Amit Shah’s massive rally in Kolkata must have also helped boost opposition towards the Mamata government. The enthusiasm with which the BJP president’s rally was attended and cheered by the youth, it became clear that the people of the state are inclined to bring BJP to power and throw out Mamata led TMC. However, this is not enough the BJP needs to make the most of this moment. It must ensure the safety of not only its own cadres but also of those TMC leaders who want to jump the ship and join the BJP. There is a decisive shift in West Bengal in the BJP’s favour. BJP should not let this moment go away and cash in on the favourable situation in West Bengal.